


Aiming for the Top

by greygerbil



Category: Assassin's Creed - All Media Types
Genre: First Kiss, Leap of Faith, M/M, Pining, freerunning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 10:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22255930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greygerbil/pseuds/greygerbil
Summary: When Master Kenway decides that Charles needs to learn how to climb like he does, Charles is only to happy to oblige.
Relationships: Haytham Kenway/Charles Lee (1732-1782)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 38
Collections: Chocolate Box - Round 5





	Aiming for the Top

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Apathy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Apathy/gifts).



Charles had feared that this would go poorly.

He was a soldier and had grown up since earliest childhood with the expectation of that role. As this was the case, he had taken care to keep his body in peak condition so he would never slow down the regiment in an infantry line. At the same time, he had also taught himself to be quick and nimble in case he would have to take part in an ambush. However, all his physical prowess did not adequately prepare him for the task of running across the rooftops of Boston after Haytham Kenway, who moved as light-footed as if he was crossing the street that was a disconcertingly long way down below them. Charles, as of yet, had not ascertained what specific skills he was lacking – though he feared it was a lot of them –, but evidently being fast and strong was not enough to even attempt to mimic Master Kenway’s movements.

Master Kenway had decided that it would be in Charles’ best interest to learn to climb and throw himself from ledge to rooftop to windowsill like he did. At first, Charles had been much excited about Master Kenway’s offhand remark that it would make Charles a better companion to have along because he could follow his routes and be more inconspicuous. It meant that Master Kenway was potentially considering him for the Order and that he seemed to want to keep Charles close as his protégé.

But as Charles pulled himself up on another chimney – shaking hands full of splinters, knees smarting from banging them gracelessly against the sides of buildings, wondering if he’d dislocated his left shoulder on that fall from the staff holding the greengrocer’s sign, which Master Kenway had used effortlessly as a stepping stone before a leap across a narrow alley –, he did not feel like he was precisely putting his best foot forward. They had been going at this for an hour and there were no significant improvements yet. The bemused expression on Master Kenway’s face, barely hiding a smile as he watched Charles struggle onto the roof, told him this had not gone unnoticed. Charles was grateful that at least the exertion would have left him red as beets and so hid the blush that surely had crept up his neck.

“Come on,” Master Kenway said, simply, before he grabbed on to a swaying beam fastened with a rope to the half-finished skeleton of a house under construction and used it to swing himself a good distance away on to the top of a market booth. Charles felt slightly ill, but he took a deep breath and prepared himself for the next jump.

-

Since he wished to avoid embarrassing himself further in front of Master Kenway, Charles often sneaked away from his camp and the barking Braddock for the next week to stumble over the rooftops of sleeping townspeople in the dead of night. There were a few problems he managed to rectify: he got better at judging distances and the ache from muscles he’d rarely employed this way eventually subsided as they got used to these new sorts of stress. However, the heights never became less vertiginous and his footing remained unsure, leaving his nerves like overstretched strings on a violin as he wondered if Master Kenway would lose his patience with him if he still acted like such an oaf the next time they were together.

He soon had a chance to answer this question, for when Master Kenway decided to give him another personal lesson, Charles noticed that all his imagined improvements vanish like drops of water on hot stone. In comparison to him, Charles was still like a bird with lame wings watching the majestic flight of a greater congener. It seemed to him as if Master Kenway’s feet barely had to touch the rooftops at times whereas Charles was painfully bound to every rickety tile and creaking board.

“Charles,” Master Kenway said, when Charles had somehow made it safely back to the ground again, briefly touching Charles’ wrist, which felt sprained. “You don’t have to try to learn every trick at once. Why don’t you start at the beginning?”

-

 _What is the beginning?_ Charles had wondered back at camp. He had a body that should theoretically be able to carry him through this ordeal, so that was taken care off. Perhaps, he decided, after some quiet contemplation, it was simply the act of staying afoot at such heights, which meant he needed to work on his balance. One of the greatest differences between him and Master Kenway was certainly that he so rarely stumbled or staggered, took no tottering steps. But how could one improve that? Was it not to some degree inborn?

The idea came to him as he sat around the fire with a few other soldiers that evening, sharing a bottle of thick brown beer. He excused himself immediately, found a stick, and went to the very back of the camp behind the requisition tents to draw straight lines into the sandy ground.

When he’d been at the military academy in Switzerland, which he’d visited before joining his father’s troops at fifteen, him and a few other boys had sometimes gotten drunk on fairly vile swill one of them had managed to sneak in via his big brother, who lived close-by. To prove to each other how little affected they were by the alcohol, they would draw lines like this on the ground and test who of them could still walk them without missing too many steps.

As Charles followed the lines, alone and sober this time and with great concentration, more of the old games came back to him. It had been then that he’d first kissed a boy, in the back of a stable under cover of night. There had been a lot of that sort of horseplay among them since there had been no girls at the school, or so they’d told themselves. However, Charles had never lost his interest in men even afterwards. It was, if he was honest, the reason he had hoped against sense that Master Kenway, whom he’d admired so greatly from tales, might be disagreeable, boorish, witless, or difficult in person. At the very least he could have been ugly, though that would likely not have been enough to protect Charles from a crush, all else being the same. However, Master Kenway as he was in reality seemed specifically designed to tempt him and after just a few months, Charles was both hopelessly ensnared and very afraid he might accidentally tip his hand.

Routinely, Charles pushed those thought aside and focused on walking the lines like tightropes. He did this for two or three evenings. One time, he thought he saw a flicker of someone perching in a nearby tree, watching him, but it turned out only to have been an eagle when looked closer, rustling the leaves as it took flight.

When he thought his walk on the lines had grown steadier, he started to find low walls and sturdy fences. The former he’d run along as fast as he could, and on the latter he’d jump from post to post, trying to keep his balance. It was an arduous and awkward-looking project that he was quite happy not to share with Master Kenway, but unlike his former attempts, it produced some more measurable results. After a couple of weeks, he did not return to camp covered in dirt and bruises anymore.

-

When Master Kenway arrived for another lesson with the first storms of autumn, Charles felt a little better about their next foray onto the rooftops, but once there, he realised his confidence was, for now, still misplaced. It was raining from thick clouds that left noon looking like the last hour of the evening. Charles shivered in a cold wind that drove the rain as he followed Master Kenway and found himself slithering every two steps and fumbling his holds, fighting with slick wood and slippery stone.

“Are you having trouble keeping up?” Master Kenway asked, sitting on the edge of a roof of a two-story house looming above the squat hut Charles was still balancing on.

“I can barely see in this rain, sir,” Charles admitted, blinking through the sheet of falling water.

“That might be for the better. You look too much.”

Master Kenway slid off the roof and landed next to him with all the casual ease of a cat. He grabbed Charles’ hand and placed it against the cold stone.

“What do you feel?”

For the moment, Charles felt very little but the fingers pressed against his skin and the fear twisting in his chest as he wondered if that thought had shown on his face. He knew it was not the answer Master Kenway was looking for, of course.

“Wet stone?” he said uncertainly. “It’s broken and sharp.”

“Scratch it with your nails to feel if it’s porous. Hold on to the edges to guess if they will cut into your flesh if you put your weight on that hand and if they will carry you.” He stepped close to kick Charles’ foot. “Start paying attention to the angle and stability of what you are standing on. How long will it hold you?”

When he followed Master Kenway onwards, Charlies tried to implement what he had been told. They were running across a tiled roof that rattled under their footsteps. They were clay tiles and not very well-worked, as they stood askew to each other often, which Charles could feel from their rounded sides pressing into his soles through his boots.

As he tarried to take in the details, there was a sudden crack under his heel and the tile he’d stood on slid away, along with its neighbouring pieces. Charles immediately threw his weight over his other leg and toppled over the gable of the house, landing splat on his front.

“Good,” Master Kenway said, walking over.

Charles wiped rain out of his face, unsure if he was being mocked, and looked up at him with a small frown. “Was it, sir?”

“The bad version would have seen you in a heap on the street with the tiles,” Master Kenway explained, offering Charles his hand to pull himself up.

-

It had become easier over the weeks to keep up, though Charles knew he was not there yet. When Master Kenway needed him as a lookout on a rooftop or wanted to sneak across the masts of ships to get at a harbour guard from an unexpected angle, he could now confidently nod his head and not expect to compromise their mission by falling like a boulder. Still, he missed the confidence and speed that Master Kenway showed and felt stiff in comparison to the easy abandon with which he jumped over the rooftops as if it was a pleasant skip in the park.

It had always been Master Kenway who had offered him his tips so far, but finally Charles decided that his modest successes perhaps granted him leave to bother him with a direct question. When one evening Master Kenway got him from the camp for a simple _walk_ , which always translated to a stroll over the rooftops, Charles stopped him once they stood next to the first set of chimneys.

“Master Kenway,” he called out.

“Yes?”

“I wanted to ask if you could give me any more advice on this matter? You surely have noticed more weaknesses of mine.”

Master Kenway looked him up and down before he gave him a thin smile.

“Follow me,” he ordered.

The two of them walked and climbed a good distance around the block until Master Kenway slowed his steps on the red-tiled roof of a three-story building and turned back to Charles.

“You are impatient,” he said, with a quirk to his lip, “which is one aspect. You will get better with time and routine if you continue to put your mind to it as you have. However, you are already quite good. The real problem is that you are too afraid.”

“I assure you I am not, sir.”

The denial was automatic. No soldier, Charles would guess, would admit to such a thing, even though Master Kenway was right, of course, which only made it more shameful.

“No?” Master Kenway asked in mocking surprise. “You should be, then. If you fell off this building, you could be crippled for life or dead. A little fear is not a bad thing. You can trust in your skill more than you do now, though. There is no need to let fear paralyse you.” He pointed to a spot over Charles’s shoulder. “Such things are not overcome by avoidance. I suggest that you meet me on top of this building and see what you think afterwards.”

Charles turned and swallowed. The structure Master Kenway indicated was a church tower that overlooked the whole of the district, going high into the star-studded night sky. With his now more practiced gaze, he saw that the wooden planks were well-worked and placed tightly together, with few obvious opportunities for fingers and feet to find a hold. There weren’t many windows or ornaments, either.

“I am not sure that I am ready for that,” he admitted, cowed.

“I am,” Master Kenway said, shouldering past him as he gave him a gentle pat on the back.

And with that he was off. Charles walked slowly behind him, still in awe after weeks of trying to copy Master Kenway’s technique, as he saw him slide up the wall of the tower. He moved like a spider on surfaces that seemed entirely smooth, jumped distances that had Charles holding his breath and always caught himself again on some ledge or gap Charles could not even see from where he stood. When he had reached his goal, he was so high up he was only a black figure standing by the big cross planted on the flat top of the tower. His head was bent expectantly towards Charles.

There was no way he could leave, Charles realised. He could not jeopardise his bid for the Order by being disobedient and craven, and most importantly, he could not disappoint Master Kenway. There was only one way for him and it was up.

Holding in his mind the image of the Master Kenway’s satisfied smile, which he’d seen at times when mastering a task especially well, Charles approached the tower and began his ascent.

The wind seemed to grow stronger as he climbed upwards, which might have been the lack of protection from the other houses or simply his own imagination. At first it was not so bad – not much higher than he had gone before, and he found two windows with iron grids on top of each other on a side of the tower he hadn’t been able to see from where he’d stood when Master Kenway had shown him the structure. However, the footholds and points of vantage lessened considerable after that and he did not yet dare throwing himself sideways towards another ledge the way Master Kenway would sometimes do.

Charles glanced towards the top and gulped down air. He could feel himself speed up as he tried to make up for the massive amount of space still between him and his goal, even as his holds and steps got sloppier; and then he looked sideways to find something to grab with his left hand and suddenly the ground seemed to fall away, the tower lean sideways, as he realised how high up he was above the city.

Charles clung to the side of the building, pressing himself against it as his heart hammered in his chest. _Get a hold of yourself!_ he told himself, again and again, as he tried to slow down his breathing. He would never reach the top like this. He had to stay calm, which had never been one of his talents. His temper had always flared in unpredictable ways.

After a moment of keeping his eyes closed, he tried to recall Master Kenway’s lessons. Perhaps he could make use of them here. He should not look so much – not up, not down –, but focus with all senses on what was in front of him.

With his heart still stuck in his throat, Charles once more inched up the side of the tower. He took it one hold after the other, moving ever upward as the wind tore at his hair and clothes. He ran his fingers over the damp wood, wedging the very tips of his boots between planks. When his hand, reaching upward, suddenly found flat ground, Charles almost winced with surprise. He hadn’t even been looking for the top anymore.

He was still shivering like a leaf when he pulled himself up, quickly taking hold of a branch of the iron cross, and then let out an elated, breathless laugh, incredulous he had made it up at all. Master Kenway raised a brow at him and opened his mouth to say something, but Charles threw his arms around his neck and hugged him tight before he could.

His moment of shock-induced madness ended quickly when his brain had a moment to catch up. Mortified, he let go, already stammering his first apology, when Master Kenway raised a hand and stopped him in his tracks.

“I told you that you should not let fear hold you back unnecessarily, did I not? It’s something you might generally want to keep in mind.”

Charles looked at him in stunned confusion as Master Kenway took his chin in hand and smiled at him. However, though their faces were so close, he turned away and grabbed Charles by the elbow instead, pulling him towards the edge of the platform.

“One more thing before I suggest that we talk,” he said, pointing downwards. “This form of descent is one that I have adopted from my earlier training for a different sort of order that you may in the future hear more of. Templars do not usually learn this, but I would like you to know how to do it. It’s called the leap of faith.”

Glancing downwards, Charles could just make out a haystack, small like a toy in the light of a lantern. He suddenly had a very good idea as to what the leap of faith entailed.

“I will show you,” Master Kenway said, positioning himself at the edge.

Usually, Charles would have gladly accepted the offer. Usually, he may have entirely ruled out the idea of throwing himself off a tall building to plunge towards a target that might be hiding any number of sharp pitchforks and which he could easily miss entirely. But Master Kenway had not led him astray yet and the blood was still pounding in his head.

“I can go first,” Charles said and stepped forward.

He fell before he could give himself time to think. The air rushed past him and Charles wondered if he would still be afraid of towers after this. Not more than he should be. Maybe it wouldn’t matter because his head would crack open on the pavement like a melon.

Charles’ fall and thoughts ended abruptly with a jolt, his landing cushioned by the pillow of hay. Blinking, Charles rolled sideways, stumbling out of the way, vaguely aware that Master Kenway would follow him – and so he did, only moments later. Since the fall had felt like an eternity to Charles, he was confused by how fast it seemed to be over when another performed it.

Master Kenway picked himself up easily, brushing hay off of him as he smiled at Charles. It was the smile Charles had hoped for as he stood at the base of the tower and it seemed to finally bottle up that well of panicked energy on which he’d been running since he had started his climb up. Still, his head was swimming.

“I don’t think I can talk sense right now, Master Kenway,” Charles muttered, just remembering what he had said to Charles before they had jumped.

Master Kenway chuckled.

“Perhaps I can make my point more succinctly,” he said and then he put his hand in the back of Charles’ head, fingers winding through the thoroughly dishevelled hair, and kissed him on the mouth. It was quick, as they stood in the middle of the street, but Charles’ heart sped like it had when he’d hung on the church tower.

“I was quite stern with you lately, I know – though only because I knew you’d live up to my expectations,” Master Kenway added. “Talking can come later. Perhaps some drinks first if you think you can stomach them.”

Charles traipsed happily after Master Kenway down the street towards the _Green Dragon_ , still feeling like he was walking on air despite the fact that he was finally on solid ground.


End file.
